Cedar Creek Natural History Area is the site of a weather station operated and funded by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and dedicated to the study of atmospheric chemistry.
Each week Jim Krueger, or other member of the Cedar Creek staff, collects samples from the station, records daily precipitation from a strip-chart recorder, and analyses the samples for pH and conductivity. This weather station provides one of the most reliable records of precipitation at Cedar Creek because two independent precipitation collectors are used and compared at week's end. One collector continuously weighs an open antifreeze-filled bucket, the other opens and closes, collecting samples only when it is raining or snowing.
The collected samples go a central laboratory associated with the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP, site MN01) for further analysis. That laboratory measures ionic concentration of calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, ammonium, nitrate, clorine, and sulfate, as well as other properties.
Sampling at Cedar Creek continues to the present, but processing the samples at the central laboratory naturally introduces a delay in presenting the data.
Chemistry and precipitation data may be obtained by the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP, site MN01)
